Parnell is Auckland’s Beverly Hills. Residents tend to be wealthy socialites, surgeons, financiers and property developers. Martini-toting Parnell Girls and their Prada bags are in evidence at the bars of Parnell Rise most nights of the week (46 & York, Woodpecker Hill and Pineapple are the current bars de jour).
The suburb has also long been an established centre for the artistic intelligentsia (literati meets the glitterati) and – as with Ponsonby and other inner city suburbs – many residents can be reasonably categorised as bobo, or bourgeois bohemians. Artists and writers may live in Parnell, but they’re definitely not the starving in a garret types.
There are many old Auckland families in Parnell, who have lived here for generations, and many families with secondary school-age children – it’s in-zone for Auckland Grammar and Epsom Girls’ Grammar and close to many private schools.
The many luxury townhouses and apartments are popular with affluent empty-nesters – older couples whose children have left home. Going by the quality of these properties, the nests may be empty but they are well-feathered.
Buyers in Parnell are mainly Europeans. By comparison, Newmarket is a cosmopolitan professional area favoured particularly by Asian migrants and business people wanting to live close to their offices and the shopping.